We show that an ion carried through an electric field by a quantized vortex ring in helium II will cause a symmetric change in the radius of the ring, even though the ion is located asymmetrically on the core of the vortex ring. The localized force on the ion will combine with a specific series of vortex waves to give a uniform growth of the ring with a small component of drift velocity perpendicular to the applied electric field. This type of energy transfer may also play an important role in superfluid turbulence. Our calculations should be valid for localized forces on thin-core classical vortices as well.
Vortex rings are considered as flow patterns of a phenomenological Hartree-type fluid with parameters fitted to the observed phonon-roton spectrum. The basis of the calculations is variational, and density patterns which are constant except in vortex cores are employed. The energy of vortex lines and rings is expressed in terms of a core radius
c, defined as the distance from the singular line of the vortex to the point of half the asymptotic density. The core size is determined by minimizing the energy and is found to be independent of the ring radius when the latter is larger than ten times the core radius. Comparing the results with the data of Rayfield and Reif, one finds
c=1.7 \AA{}, while the phenomenological model yields half this value. The critical velocity associated with ring formation in a channel is considered following the lines of Fetter's earlier calculation. In the present calculation it is possible to incorporate the Fineman-Chase analysis of channel wall effects. Agreement with experiment is considerably improved.
We capture the decay of a quantized vortex ring in superfluid helium-4 by imaging particles trapped on the vortex core. The ring shrinks in time, providing direct evidence for the dissipation of energy in the superfluid. The ring with trapped particles collapses more slowly than predicted by an available theory, but the collapse rate can be predicted correctly if the trapping of the particles on the core is taken into account. We theoretically explore the conditions under which particles may be considered passive tracers of quantized vortices and estimate, in particular, that their dynamics on the large-scale is largely unaffected by the burden of trapped particles if the latter are spaced by more than ten particle diameters along the vortex core, at temperatures between 1.5 K and 2.1 K.